Hello and goodbye

Hello. It's been awhile! Finals, Christmas break in Cali, the start of a new semester, health issues... There has been a lot to keep me from this blog.
But really, I'm writing to say goodbye. For awhile, at least.
Every year I come up with a New Year's theme (my antithesis to the resolutions of striving that hold me in bondage), and this year I chose the word simplify. It took me a year and a half of graduate school to realize just how unbelievably hard this life is. For some ridiculous reason I entered into this new life assuming that I could keep up with everything like I always did. Cooking gourmet meals every other night, regularly hosting dinner parties, engaging in art projects, being super social, traveling near and far, keeping up my blog... Yeah, right. Something finally got through to me by the end of last semester, and I was able to see how insane my expectations for myself had been. Juggling motherhood, a marriage, and grad school is more than enough to make me crazy. And so the word simplify came into focus. I desire to strip my life down to its barest roots and cling to only what really matters. In essence, if it isn't a necessity or it isn't life-giving, chuck it. For example, cleaning the bathrooms: a necessity. Yoga classes: life-giving. But blogging? There are times when pouring out my heart through writing is life-giving. But there are many other times when I spend far too long writing, and then get caught up on how many people responded (or didn't respond) to my post, or how boring it was, etc. Those ruminations are definitely not life-giving.
And so--in an effort to nurture myself (and my soul could use some nurturing)--I am letting go of this form of communication for the time being. I'll probably even give up Facebook for Lent again, too. It's difficult swimming upstream against our society's current of "busier is better". But my soul needs a rest. Just writing those words gives me a whisper of peace already.